Wonderful character development!

Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

I absolutely adored Kristin Kreuk in her story arc on CHUCK, and though I never watch actual television, sneaked regular peeks away from DVD on the channel that was airing SMALLVILLE. That led to BEAUTY & THE BEAST, which I enthused about at the beginning, but... okay, that's another story. But as the magic fizzled out of BEAUTY & THE BEAST, I longed for Kristin back in her heyday, so I did some research, Wikipedia, IMDb, and found SNOW WHITE, a Canadian TV movie, so, some trepidation there, and I couldn't find a trailer. But I took the gamble on Kristin, she had to have been a pretty kid, glam-wise the movie was sure not to disappoint.Turns out I was quite right. Kristin, with her luminous eyes, porcelain-white skin, raven-black hair offsetting those gold star jewelry, makes a wonderful Snow White, certainly she is an excellent choice. On Wikipedia, described as 'doe-eyed' yeah, exactly! Notice that she also got criticized, dismissed as 'bland' to which I feel obliged to point out that the script follows the current trend of highlighting the Evil Stepmother, whether she be Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts, Sigourney Weaver, or in this case, Miranda Richardson. So don't blame little Kristin, who, anyway, was a kid back then. Yes, her part should have been more active, but then again, as for the one of the multitude of SNOW WHITEs that I also saw, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, which deteriorated into a militant Joan of Arc display that completely overthrew the original fairy-tale, surely I don't want anything like that, thank you very much, but no thank you. You have to be a kid for this, so be warned, people. But toddlers might be too frightened to go to bed alone after seeing the Satanic messenger I have since learned is called The Green-Eyed One. Yet older children won't bother with this. Moms watching it with their kids might like it, though, it is truly charming, holes and all. Me myself I collect stuff like this, early appearances of stars, so okay! but I do groan every time there's a gooey-sugary dwarf face on the screen, Vincent Schiavelli excluded. A whole lot of work went into this. Magical bedazzling color, a lot of charming animals, all in all, for a TV-movie with a limited budget, these guys elevated themselves onto a next plane, so I have to let them have it: You came close, yet you went and screwed it up in many ways. The whole thing is quite uneven, we have kind of a new take on the original, yet we go through a bit of a bumpy ride along the way, you kinda feel like a fool for watching at times, then it rights itself again, then the cart tips over again...Miranda generally gets rave reviews, but I think she's kinda corny, just a big gutsy performance, but totally unpolished, just, like, here I am, I give a whole lot to the part, I'm really at it, film me, there it is, you got it. But the real (and major) surprise is Vera Farmiga, an unexpected appearance, I'm not going to say too much, 'cause I don't wanna carry Spoiler Alert labels, but this very pretty young lady, wow, that was some hectic performance, and she goes around looking like Sarah Jessica Parker but is almost scary!A drinking game for toddlers: (mugs of cocoa) Drink one every time there's a fade-out. Gee, the director must have been impressed with his new camera's fade-out functions. Action, fade- out, something happens, fade-out, another thing, fade-out, revelation, fade-out. Poor little toddlers will be so fulla sweetness in next to no time they'd fall into bed without a nighty night. I repeat, for a Canadian TV movie, lots more than you'd expect. I can see why it was released on DVD, it's got a lot of potential, even though it ultimately fell short of its own potential.Yet I'm going to feel like a louse if I give it only a 6. Ah, let's just call my 7 actually a 7 Minus, OK?

To be be honest, I was expecting this movie to be terrible. I'm a big fan of Warwick Davis and bought the movie just because he was in it. What I expected to be a cheesy, poorly acted retelling of a tired fairytale, turned out to be an only occasionally cheesy movie with a few casting mistakes that was reasonably entertaining. The queen's back story and the intertwining of other fairy tales (pinches of Snow White & Rose Red and Snow Queen)make an otherwise predictable story interesting. Miranda Richardson is amazing as the queen to the point where she makes up for the fact that Snow White is just reciting lines and her father is overly dramatic and completely unbelievable. As for the seven, I was disappointed with the flatness of some characters. Script-wise the leader is really the only one with depth, so I can see where some of the actors struggled to show humanity, but when half of them act like they have feelings, and the other half act like they stepped out of a Disney *shudders* movie, is make all seven seem fake. It's still fun to watch, though, if for no other reason than to see Warwick Davis threaten to beat up some one twice his size.

Not the cloying Disney musical (sorry, I've never liked that film) but a modern retelling of the story, a live-action version originally done for TV. This Snow White is a little different in that it's told by a woman with a woman's point of view.The story is pretty much like the Bros. Grimm version, with a few notable changes. One of them is a pretty good performance by Clancy Brown as the Green Eyed One, from whom much of the impetus of the story flows. Freed from an icy prison by Snow White's father, John (Tom Irwin), the Green Eyed One gives John three wishes. Which is how John ends up being a king, a job he isn't suited for and doesn't do very well. Sadly Snow's mother died when she was young, and so John really wants a queen. Enter Elspeth (Miranda Richardson), the Green One's sister and a hag until he works a magical nip/tuck on her. Of course now that she's a flame-haired hottie, she wants to be the only game in town, a status which is threatened by the blossoming princess Snow (Kristin Kreuk). Yeah, there's some silly stuff about dwarfs in there as well.This Snow White is more about two women in transitional stages of their lives and how they can't deal with it. Snow doesn't want to be a grown up, and Elspeth doesn't want to grow old. Both of them reject their change in status, which leads to predictably bad results. Snow ends up running away and hiding amongst the dwarfs (who are given names of the week and clad in the colors of the rainbow here). The dwarfs are mostly amiable oafs except for Tuesday (Vincent Schiavelli) who stands six-five and complains about everything. Oh yeah, there's also a prince (doesn't there have to be?), played by Tyron Leitso, but better known as Jaye's neo-boyfriend from Wonderfalls (Jaye sort of would have been at home here, with talking dwarfs and flying mirrors and all).The production design is a little on the cheap, which is to be expected from a TV movie, but what they lack in scope they make up for with spirit. The dwarf costumes are all fanciful, and the few sets are creatively decorated and very striking. Kreuk looks very princessy, and Richardson is suitably attired for an older woman trying to pretend she's younger. Clancy Brown is also well-hidden behind some nice fantasy make-up.The story's a little trite, especially when we have to focus on Irwin's incredibly weak John; but the dwarfs are more or less fun (led by Michael J. Anderson, best known as the backwards talking dwarf on Twin Peaks) and Richardson vamps it up pretty well. Kreuk comes off as oddly unappealing (a real feat for her); we never warm up to her Snow at all, and I really think we're supposed to.Overall this isn't a bad rendition of the story, but it's not a great one, either, and probably for most people Disney's version will reign supreme. I like the attempt at imbuing an old tale with some modern sensibilities, even if they did dumb it down enough to make it kid-friendly. Snow White isn't something you should spend a lot of time tracking down, but might be worth a bemused spin on the DVD player should you stumble across it.

Snow white has always been, and always will be, such a classic story. Now, after watching this film i am greatly disappionted in one; the dramaticly changed, and at times confussing plot line, and two; Vincent Schiavelli role within the film.After watching 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' just the other night, and now seeing Schiavelli in this dud of a film, i must say how disheartened i was to see such a great actor stoop to a awful rendition, as this was.Although it was ment to be a more 'modern' insite to snow white, it really didnt do anything for me. Change of story line, bad acting, and over-done 'special effects' are only a few of the things that ruined this film.